Mona Lisa in New York

In this love letter to New York City, Mona Lisa is a tourist who experiences the city for the first time, and finds art, love, and inspiration in unexpected places.

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Mona Lisa is taking a trip to New York from the Louvre. Yes, that Mona Lisa. The one with the knowing smile. After hanging in the museum for a while she decides to explore the city. She slips out of her painting and meets Tag, a street art figure. He takes her on an adventure from the Bronx to the Brooklyn Bridge and it turns out Mona Lisa doesn’t know as much as she thought. In this beautiful and charming book, artist Yevgenia Nayberg, an immigrant to New York herself, shows young readers the city she has fallen in love with. Cleverly portraying da Vinci’s iconic subject as a world-weary, know-it-all, Nayberg takes readers on a tour of New York. Mona Lisa and Tag eat pizza in the Bronx, listen to jazz in Harlem, dance to salsa music on the High Line, and swim at Brighton Beach. As Mona Lisa says goodbye to her new friend, she—and the readers—come away with a profound appreciation of the city and its wonders.